Unofficial news and tips about Google

February 21, 2007

Google Apps Premier Edition

Google Apps Premier Edition is the promised offering for small businesses. It includes 10 gigabytes of mail storage, 99.9% uptime guarantee for email, APIs to integrate with the existing infrastructure of a business (single sign-on, user management, email gateway), 24/7 phone support. Everything for $50 a year per user (there's a free trial until April 30th).

Google continues to offer two free editions of Google Apps:

* a edition for schools, that includes the APIs and 24/7 phone support

* a edition for families and groups that has all the features that were available until now.

Google's intention is to convince it can deliver "simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools for your organization without the usual hassle and cost" and the package can integrate into an existing environment. Google has learned a lot since last August, when it first introduced Google Apps, and has adapted to fit the needs of a corporate environment. Will businesses adapt to use Google's web applications and trade some features for an always-available online interface?

* You'll notice that Google Apps for Your Domain has been rebranded as Google Apps.

They forgot the most important thing for me and a lot of other small businesses is a decent contact manager you can manage, share and access remotely.MSoft's new Business Contact Manager is a big pain to share. They have a white paper 14 pages long just to get a server side database running. YUK!!!!!

The next step is definitely INTEGRATION... and the GApps Api makes that possible. Avaya is already doing commercial products. We are developing an FREE open source "business application platform" (think salesforce.com). Our first application is working tightly integrated with GOOGLE APPS. http://www.applicationexchange.com.

I'm a small business owner (myself) and am growing. With my employees in different parts of the country, using a system that allows them to one system to access documents, spreadsheet, and email.

Although $50 doesn't sound bad, as a business owner, any expense is something to complain about. I'm still looking but this looks like an extremely viable, cost effective option. If nothing, it gives the other big "dawgs" a run for their money.

I used Google Apps for the first time last week when I was out of town on business. I was surprised how flexible it was. I'm not ready to replace my usual software yet, but it's definitely a viable option for those looking for a set of tools that can accomplish nearly all basic tasks. Getting the word out is the next step.

Needed: integration. Google Apps is way cool as a toy right now, but has way too much of a Beta feel to justify $50/user/yr. No contact sync with Outlook, Thunderbird, mobile device, etc? Wow that is just clueless. Plaxo can do it; why not the mighty Google? That just seems so amateurish.

Any legitimate business owner who complains of a hosted solution for all document, email, calendaring, contacts, and a basic page builder to boot for 13 cents per day has no place in today's marketplace. On a more personal note, I'm really looking forward to seeing my taxes devoted towards your soon to be unemployed ass.

Google apps premier is great, but here are the real caviots that took me a few months to find:

500 outgoing messages per account per day MAX. If you reach this limit you all you're done sending anything for 24 hours.

SPAM filters that you cannot modify. Some false positives will inevitably end up in your spam folder and even if you mark it as "not spam" there is a significant chance that the next time a message from the same sender will be marked as spam again.

I would like Google to add "Google Storage" with ftp AND rsync as part of the Google Apps. If I am going to use GMail, Google Docs, etc. than I really want a place to put or backup the rest of my important files: "Google Storage".

And can you please "fix" the month view of the calendar so it does not truncate entries that extend beyond a single line.

We have recently migrated Exchange Server to Google Apps Premier Edition for 2 large corporates in India. I must say that the task looked daunting in the beginning but it came our quite nice in the end.

Google Apps Premier Edition is a great Technology boost for corporates and enterprises. It is much more cost effective than any legacy server based email system.

I started using Google before it became the hit sensation it has become. I also use their free email service. Google Apps premium, however, is the worst customer experience that I have ever had.

A relative has a small business and I suggested to switch to Google Apps, naively thinking that their premium service would be even better than their free service. They outsource the Google Apps to "IYogi" an Indian company and we talk to people in India who don't know the service and can't answer basic questions, lie about the set-up costs, costs of the service, and do a hard sell on warranties. Further, when they said that they are going to call within minutes, they did not, and 1.5 hours later, we were still waiting. And when we did finally get to us, they wanted to charge us more for an undisclosed fee. Run, don't walk, away from Google Apps. Totally disgusted.

Anonymous Don't waste resources you don't have. said on January 14, 2008 8:51 PM PDT:Any legitimate business owner who complains of a hosted solution for all document, email, calendaring, contacts, and a basic page builder to boot for 13 cents per day has no place in today's marketplace. On a more personal note, I'm really looking forward to seeing my taxes devoted towards your soon to be unemployed ass.

I certainly hope you are not being serious in your comment. $50/user per year is still a nice chunk of change for any "small business" when the premier features are comparable to the standard edition's feature set. if you have 40 employees (who only really utilize the email feature) that is still $2k off your bottom line, which can be a high cost for any small business to justify after overhead and expenses just for email to integrate with a calendar, some minimal doc space and a contact manager.)

guys try out Windows Live Admin Center - It has d same features but gives u 500 email a/c & more can be had for free (on completing certain criteria). I've deployed both for customers & myself. Windows Live Admin Center (prev'ly Custom Domains) din't had custom branding so i switched 2 google apps, but now Live Admin too had custom branding included. It also has many features which GApps still dont have.

I currently have the Standard edition but am willing to pay for Premier just so I'll be able to use the new Gmail BlackBerry Plug-in when it comes out of RIM beta in a few weeks. BUT...if, I ever want to switch back from Premier to Standard, is this possible (without a hassle)?

Is there anyone in the New York City area who uses google apps premier who would like to participate in a paid focus group study in manhattan? The pay is pretty lucrative for just a few hours. I am recruiting the study, My name is Denise. Would love to get some women on the group too.